Red Velvet Hot Chocolate

🧾 What You’ll Need

Ingredients

Here’s what you need to know as you gather your ingredients. (Links are affiliate links and I earn a small commission from qualifying purchases.)

• Chocolate: I recommend using semi-sweet chocolate bars, chopped into small pieces. You could also use good-quality chocolate chips. A good rule of thumb is, since this chocolate provides all the flavor, you should use chocolate you enjoy eating. Using old, waxy, or cheap chocolate will lead to disappointing results.
• Milk: Any fat percentage will work, but I like to make this with 2%, which makes it rich enough without being too rich.
• Cream cheese: Cream cheese provides a subtle “tangy” flavor that replicates real red velvet flavor. Not a fan? Swap in some heavy cream. It won’t have the same taste, but will add a bit of fat that makes the drink more rich.
• Brown sugar: Adds a note of caramelized sweetness to the drink.
• Vanilla and salt: Both of these additions are subtle, but they add depth of flavor and shouldn’t be skipped.
• Red food coloring: If you want a spooky blood-red color, you’ll need to use red food coloring. I use and recommend Americolor Super Red gel food coloring. If you’re only interested in the flavor and not the color, you can skip the coloring.

Equipment

• Blender: I recommend a stick blender to easily blend the milk and cream cheese, but you can use a standard blender (or even a whisk and some elbow grease!) if that’s what you have.
• Saucepan: A medium (2-3 quart) saucepan is perfect for this recipe.
• Whisk:An absolute must to evenly disperse the chocolate as it melts.
• Skull mugs: Optional but very fun! Here are some skull mugs similar to the ones used in the post.

📸 Photo Tutorial: How to Make Red Velvet Hot Chocolate

Making this hot chocolate is wickedly easy – here’s how it’s done!

Blend the Milk and Cream Cheese

1. Combine 2 1/2 cups of milk and 3 oz of room temperature cream cheese in a blender. (Or, if you have an immersion blender, place them right in your medium saucepan.)
2. Blend them together until smooth and completely incorporated.

Add the Other Ingredients

1. Add 6 oz chopped semi-sweet chocolate, 2 tsp vanilla extract, 2 TBSP brown sugar, and 1/4 tsp salt to the saucepan.
2. Place the pan over medium heat and warm the milk, whisking occasionally, until the chocolate is completely melted and your mixture is smooth.

Color and Serve!

1. Add a generous squirt of red gel food coloring. I recommend adding a little at a time, whisking in between, until you get a color you like. Be aware that it will require more food coloring than you’d think to get a bright red.
2. Serve while it’s still hot – in skull mugs if you’ve got ’em!

💡 Tips for Success

Here are some helpful tips for making red velvet hot chocolate:

• Use high-quality chocolate for the best flavor.
• Make sure the cream cheese is at room temperature so it’s easy to blend, and blend or whisk it with the milk until it’s very smooth.
• If you prefer a richer drink, use whole milk instead of low-fat milk.
• If you find the hot chocolate too thick, thin it out with a little more milk.
• To achieve the perfect blood-red color, you’ll need to use a concentrated food coloring, like gel color or powdered food coloring, and you’ll need to use a lot of it! (I used Americolor Super Red for mine.) If you don’t want to use so much coloring — understandable! — you can skip it or use less, just know that you’ll have more of a brown or burgundy beverage.
• If making for a crowd, keep it warm in a slow cooker set to low heat, stirring occasionally.
• The key to great red velvet hot chocolate is balancing the chocolate flavor with the subtle tang of cream cheese, so feel free to adjust the ingredients to suit your taste preferences.